Health and Wellbeing strategy

July 2013

Strategic aim

The strategic aim of our health and wellbeing plan in ORR is:

- To promote health and wellbeing at work in a variety of ways, having regard to our duty of care as an employer, and because this underpins an engaged and productive workforce. Health and wellbeing is a critically important aspect of our work that underpins engagement and delivery. As a health and safety regulator, ORR expects to be an exemplary employer in the occupational health and wellbeing of its people. Our health and wellbeing programme will be aligned with the industry best practice, as well as being proportionate to our size.

Strategic objectives

The strategic aim is underpinned by the following objectives:

1. Promoting a healthy lifestyle and providing appropriate health and wellbeing advice, taking a preventative approach.
2. ORR will meet our legal requirements for Health & Safety (H&S) and aim to follow best practice.
3. Encourage employees to achieve a healthy work-life balance and ensuring that occupational stress is appropriately managed.
4. ORR has in place appropriate flexible working practices and policies that would be expected of a good employer.
5. ORR will monitor sickness absence rates, and strive to have high engagement and motivation from our people around our health & wellbeing events.

How we will achieve these strategic objectives

1. Promoting a healthy lifestyle and providing appropriate health and wellbeing advice.

   Directors/Managers will: • Ensure new starters and staff are aware of what health and wellbeing services are available.

Individuals will:

• Make use of the appropriate service to improve their personal effectiveness. • Raise any concerns to the appropriate service, i.e. their manager, HR or occupational health provider.

HR will:

• Procure and manage an occupational health (OH) and employee assistance programme (EAP) for all staff. • Provide free annual flu jabs to all staff. • Arrange annual health promotion events, which include 1-2-1 MOT’s for staff. • Offer staff a range of lifestyle benefits e.g. interest free bike loan, cycle to work scheme, Bupa discount. • Support the Anti-bullying & harassment volunteers, and ensure staff are aware of their services. • Report on our health & wellbeing activities in annual accounts. • Review if there are any other preventative health & wellbeing initiatives that should be introduced. • Communicate topical health information e.g. advice on use of hand gels during norovirus outbreaks.

Health & Safety Committee will:

• Oversee the development and implementation of safety policies, procedures and safe systems of work. • Study accident and incident statistics and patterns to report to management and the facilities team on unsafe or unhealthy conditions and practices, and provide recommendations for improving them.

2. ORR will meet our legal requirements for Health & Safety and aim to follow best practice.

Directors/Managers will:

• Be aware of their legal requirement with regard to H&S legal requirements, and follow best practice for risk assessments. • Conduct risk assessments where necessary. For example ORR generic office risk assessment or Personal Track Safety.

Individuals will:

• Work with their line manager to complete the appropriate risk assessment for their work. • Know how to escalate H&S issues if they affect the individuals work.

HR will:

• Ensure high risk workers complete the appropriate risk assessment e.g. pregnant workers or lone workers. • Provide workstation assessments and free eyesight tests.

Health & Safety Committee will:

• Provide best practice advice on H&S legal requirements.

3. Ensuring that employees achieve a healthy work-life balance and that occupational stress is appropriately managed.

Directors/Managers will:

• Contact HR to seek support for work-life balance and occupational stress concerns for their staff.

Individuals will:

• Responsibly undertake to make use of work-life balance. • Seek support from their manager and HR if they have work-life balance and occupational stress concerns.

HR will:

• Ensure managers and the HR team are aware of the ORR stress management tools and process, and that this information is easy to find. • Implement managers ‘How to guides’ for dealing with occupational stress.

4. ORR has in place appropriate flexible working practices and policies that would be expected of a good employer.

Directors/Managers will:

• Encourage staff to make use of the flexible working practices available to them and lead by example, taking into account business needs.

Individuals will:

• Make use of the flexible working practices to improve their health and wellbeing, and personal effectiveness.

HR will: • Ensure our policies are update with the current statutory regulations on flexible working. • Update our policies to reflect the current working practices of the organisation.

5. ORR will monitor sickness absence rates, and strive to have high engagement and motivation from our people around our health & wellbeing events.

Directors/Managers will:

• Ensure all sickness absence is reported appropriately. • Commit to having regular dialogues with their staff to be able to encourage engagement and motivation with health & wellbeing events. • Have an awareness of the risks and signs of presenteeism(^1) or sickness presence. • Be mindful of staff displaying signs of presenteeism and raise with the individual, with the support of HR. • Take responsibility to prevent issues arising and undertake appropriate risk assessments.

Individuals will:

• Ensure all sickness absence is reported to their line manager. • Speak to their manager and/or HR if they have concerns about their absence, attendance, health, engagement or motivation.

HR will:

• Ensure managers record all sickness absence appropriately. • Review our managing sickness absence policy to ensure it does not encourage presenteeism or sickness presence. • Review regularly the sickness absence data and provide support to the manager and individual when required. • Review what Occupational Health data is shared with ExCo on a regular basis. • Review the responses in the Civil Service People Survey and highlight any areas of action to improve engagement and motivation amongst staff. • Make use of the ORR Pulse survey to gather staff feedback on the Health & Wellbeing plan.

______________________________________________________________________

(^1) Presenteeism and sick presence means attending work while sick, which may lead to productivity loss and decreased health [Acas December 2011].